


forever in debt to your priceless advice

by scarecrowes



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-19
Updated: 2012-09-19
Packaged: 2017-11-14 14:16:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/516098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarecrowes/pseuds/scarecrowes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meyer looks at him - and it clicks, probably before it does for Charlie, why he’s even suggesting it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	forever in debt to your priceless advice

“We need to get you a girl.” 

Meyer looks up from the mirror he’s fixing his tie in and finds Charlie watching him from the doorway. 

“What?”  

“A broad, Meyer.” Charlie grins, sauntering closer. “You know. Tits? Cooze? One a’ those?” 

He establishes the statement with a rolling hand gesture, and Meyer rolls his eyes, finding the cigarette case on his desk. 

“I don’t want a whore, Charlie.” The older man’s response is the same as it usually is - shaking his head because he doesn’t get it, won’t ever get it, but it’s Meyer, so... 

“Didn’t say it had to be one. Just, y’know...” 

Meyer looks at him - and it clicks, probably before it does for Charlie, why he’s even suggesting it.  

Because it bothers him. 

It bothers him because he’s Charlie, and he’s hot-blooded and he doesn’t like to think that the things they do together count for much. That Meyer’s gotta find a _broad_ because Meyer’s still a virgin and that’s no good, and not because it might make Luciano more comfortable that they fuck like jackrabbits and neither of them has a set of tits.  

The greasy bastard.  

“Who would you recommend, Charlie?” 

Meyer says it winding around his desk again, sitting on the edge of it and blowing smoke, not thinking about the rest. He’ll do it the same reason he does many things, the same reason he told Charlie once, “you’ll ruin the partnership”. 

It’s his job to keep them right where they should be. 

Charlie just blinks - probably wasn’t expecting that, because usually Meyer will shrug him off until he relents or gets punched in the gut. 

But he recovers fast enough. 

“What about that broad I seen you with a couple times?” Charlie questions, taking one of Meyer’s cigarettes and lighting his own. “Jew girl? Dark hair, almost as little as you-” 

_“Anna?”_

Charlie nods, watching Meyer gawp at him. “What? You don’t like her?” 

“...It’s not like that.” 

Because Anna’s sweet and he’s known her almost as long as he’s known Charlie, because he’d never really thought about it, sure they get along, but he’s _busy,_ and she’s... 

“It’s still early. Call her up.” 

Charlie punctuates the statement with a shove to Meyer’s shoulder, and Meyer realizes a little late that he doesn’t have much choice. 

So he picks up the phone, and Charlie to his credit wanders toward the window, as if he’s gonna do anything but listen in. 

He’s still a bastard. 

* * *

 

Anna smiles at him over her glass and he actually manages to return it. 

He took her someplace quiet - one of the haunts that he and Charlie have money in, not that she needs to know that. But it lets them have a table in the back, dimly lit and quiet, and he did it more for the lack of interrupting noise than for her. 

But she smiles anyway. 

 Not that it isn’t stilted, because their shoes bump under the table and Meyer jumps and Anna _laughs._  

“Sorry.” he mumbles, and she shakes her head and rests her hand on the table next to his - and she has perfect, little hands. 

“It’s fine,” she murmurs. Maybe it is.  

He ends up talking about numbers - nothing work related, of course, but something he pulled from books like he’d tell Charlie or Frank about. Anna doesn’t roll her eyes, though, doesn’t wrinkle her nose or blink stupidly.

(Charlie’s not stupid though, that isn’t--) 

 She listens, leaning on her hand, while he rambles - and he is rambling, he knows that, because it’s the thing that he and Rothstein do in between rattling off numbers, back and forth until- 

Until the waiter interrupts with more drinks and Meyer nearly bites through his tongue.

“...Are you alright?” Anna’s all dark hair and the worried line of her brow, and Meyer swallows wine too fast, nodding.  

“Ah, yeah, I’m fine.” Not even close.  

He notices at some point that she’s wound her fingers through his, and he wants to pull away because it’s terrifying. Doesn’t want to, because it’s necessary, and she’s warm. 

She tells him about her parents, friends, and he sorts it away and nods when he should. She asks after AR, and it’s then he remembers that she knows how they met, though not everything that happened after.

After all, she was at the Bar Mitzvah, too. 

He side steps it with a vague smile and a shrug, _he’s fine, Carolyn’s in London again--_

And Anna gets a faraway look, her hand around his going loose enough for him to pull away - to pay the check, of course, after it’s brought over. 

Meyer takes her home and it’s funny, that as soon as they hit the street she speaks to him in Yiddish. That she’s quiet just like he is and maybe if he stays that way he can pretend that’s all it is, that he’s not constantly swallowing the other stuff, and he could maybe be good for her. 

 She stops at the foot of her staircase and tugs him forward by the hand she’s somehow got hold of again - and he thinks for a moment she’s gotten too close too easy, before she kisses him and it’s gentle and she tastes like the cigarette he offered her before. 

“I’d like to see you again soon, Meyer.”  

He’s still got to tip his head up a little to look her in the face - more than he might have normally, because she’s wearing heels. He wonders how much better it’d be without them. What she’d be like curled around him in the dark, dark hair and dark eyes and the gentle hand he places on her hip-

 -- to push her away. 

 “I’d like that, too.” He tells her, smiling a little too late, but she seems to believe it. He thinks he does, too. She’s not the kind of girl to leave the bed of before she wakes up, though - she’s not the kind to invite him upstairs just yet. 

No matter what the falter in her smile, the slight tilt of her head as she lets him go tells him to the contrary. 

And he makes it three blocks after their goodnight before he ducks into an alley and braces against the wall, swallowing until he stops shaking.

 

* * *

 

 

“Why are you still here?” 

 Meyer says it with more venom than he might have otherwise, because it’s late and his neat little walls are wearing thin. And because Charlie’s lounging in his office with the bottle of Overholt he usually keeps under the safe. 

“How was it?” Charlie, of course, brushes off Meyer’s question with his own. 

“Why do you care?” Meyer isn’t in the mood - not for Charlie’s needling, his bravado or pretending. He just wants to straighten things here, go home and go to bed. 

But Charlie looks downright _offended,_ and for the first time in years Meyer wonders if he’s misread him. 

“The fuck do you mean, why do I care?” But Charlie when he’s angry is familiar too, so Meyer knows to stand still and let himself be loomed over.  

It’s easier to slam a knee between his legs that way, if it comes to that. 

“I--” 

“We’re _friends,_ you smartass Hebe fuck.” Charlie shoves him, hard enough that he stumbles back and hits the desk so it skids. 

He tries to consider what would happen if he doesn’t reel himself back and apologize, because he’s not more patient than Charlie, but he’s better at faking it. If he just hauls off and decks him - and it all might end right there. If he hit hard enough, he could get Charlie to stop coming back.

But of course, he can’t do that. 

So he breathes, recollects, and notices that it’s a little more than anger in Charlie’s face. That he’s glaring and _confused_ and that doesn’t make sense, except that Meyer’s making an ass of himself, isn’t he? 

“...Sorry, Charlie.” 

He knows better than to move until Charlie backs down, the coil in his shoulders going lose as he shrugs, sniffs, and grabs for the bottle of whiskey again. The tension still hangs as Meyer lights a cigarette, until Charlie splays his hands and says-

“So?” 

“It was fine.” Meyer sighs, contemplating the smoke he sends curling toward the ceiling. “It was.. good. She’s a sweet girl.” 

Charlie blinks at him.

“...And?” 

“And what?” Meyer throws him a look, and Charlie snorts, like he’s ignoring the obvious. 

“You do her, or what?” 

If Meyer were closer, he’d punch Charlie’s arm hard enough to bruise. 

“Is that the only thing you ever care about?” He already knows the answer to that. Charlie’s simple and Charlie wants everything _else_ to be simple, and maybe it is, when Charlie can just grin and shrug and ask him-

“What else matters?” 

Business, Meyer almost says. Numbers. This - it makes _sense._

“You’re an ass.” Meyer tells him instead, and takes the bottle when Charlie offers it. He has books to sort, things to prepare for the morning - but he drinks instead, just for now, til all he tastes is booze and tobacco. He’s thinking of dark hair and dark eyes, sunk low in his chair and he doesn’t hear what Charlie mumbles next to him. 

“Come again?” 

He lolls his head up - and his friend’s really close, tall and dark and that heavy citrus-tinged cologne that AR bought him. Charlie scowls, because he doesn’t ever like repeating himself. 

“I said it ain’t like nobody else is gonna look out for you, stupid.”

Meyer laughs, empty and open and just goddamn _fine._  

“Shut up, Charlie.” 


End file.
